New Committee Formed at local Mosque

Just want to inform everyone that after much deliberation, politicking and argumentation, a new [executive] committee was formed. Whilst it is not perfect, I believe that there are people there who can and will run the affairs of the Mosque properly and effectively, we will make sure of that by constant questioning. There is one person on the committee who is a young educated brother who will be a breath of fresh air in the proceedings, may he be the first of many such people who get introduced into the committee. In response to the formation of the committee I had the following post on my blog:

“Despite the efforts of the majority party and its ‘rukn’ we see that again in ______ a Mosque committee has been formed on ‘caste’ grounds. This can surely not achieve as much as a diverse and equal committee could have. We see that those who have preached for ‘brotherhood and tolerence’ have in fact proved they are totally alien to these basic Islamic principles and only paid lip service to them. No effort was made to form a joint committee that is inclusive of Muslims from ALL backgrounds, and nominations were made solely on the basis of ‘qawmiyat’.

When our children face discrimination in almost every field of their lives, when our daughters are forced to remove hijab in school, I would not have a problem if it is a raja, jatt or pathan who deals with the issues to fight for our rights. It seems this is just another field that our children must get used to where they will face discrimination and inequality, the House of Allah.

May Allah grant the best amongst us the opportunity to provide the best service in his way. Ameen.” — Anonymous

Whilst I agree with most of the sentiments expressed in the above, the accusation that the committee is not made up of a diverse range of people and is formed on “caste grounds” is inaccurate. I am absolutely convinced that had the Jat/Chaudry party had the greater share of the vote they too would have exclusively picked people from their own party. This is the result of the way the elections are organised. When the Labour party wins it does not offer cabinet positions to the Tory party. In order to move away from such a system we need to re-think the electoral process. I propose we have a party independent of any of the existing ones, based on people who are willing and able to work for the mosque from any background (aqidah: Sunni). This party should be made up of professional and educated people, doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, managers, IT people etc and have a clear manifesto for the Mosque and actually canvass people’s support prior to an election. Only then can we hope to move away from the millstone of the sub-continent qawmi politics.

As for the committee, it is of 34 members and broadly represents the community, the Jat/Chaudry group have the most seats, but all the other parties together have the majority and have a united alliance and understanding. I think this person is talking about the executive positions of which there are seven as follows: President, Vice-President, Secretary, Vice-Secretary, Treasurer, Vice Treasurer and Organiser. The executive positions are made up of 2 people from the Pathan community, 1 person from the Shareefs (Ahl al-Bayt), 3 from the Rajput community and 1 person who does not identify himself with a caste and is of neither of the preceding ones. Unfortunately there is no representation from the Jat/Chaudry community and I believe that one of the executive positions should have been give to this community as there are a number of good people able and willing to do the work of the mosque. As for the majority party it would be interesting to see if they will withhold donations because that is what happened last time; I hope not.

Brother if you are reading this and I would imagine that you are or will read at some stage, I would like to sit down and discuss these issues with you. We need a change of attitude and personally I am striving for that change and would like to co-operate with like minded people and it would seem that you are like minded. I think the time has come for us “British Muslims” to demand a greater role in the affairs of the Mosque and the only way is to get together and talk which I am happy and willing to do, are you? You know me and you can contact me and if you are sincere as you say then call me.

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11 thoughts on “New Committee Formed at local Mosque”

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace is reported to have said that, “whoever builds a mosque in this world, Allah will build him/ber a mosque in Paradise”. These words are written on the west wall in the main hall of Aylesbury Mosque. People around Britain, like the Muslims of Aylesbury, strove to aim for this reward by their efforts and intentions. However, the shadows of prejudice, greed, pride, ignorance and prestige followed those hardworking minds from their homes in the sub-continent to this new land, and lurked in the newly built masjids. Our elders were only human and unfortunately some of them could not resist but to enter their masjids into a state of political warfare. Consequently, the work of our elders has remained incomplete. We, the younger generation, have to finish off the job. The foundations have been laid; the stage has been set. In whichever way we can, we have to try to engage with our masjids; we have to make them thrive. We have to use the skills, knowledge, experience and broadmindedness that we have inherited from growing up in a multi-ethnic world to advance and to take our masjids to another level. Developing our masjids goes hand in hand with community building and dawa. Aylesbury Mosque, like many other masjids in Britain and around the world, has been managed by well-intentioned people who, because of their in-bred beliefs and constraints, planted a tree but fought over who would tend to it and water it. They can not turn back the clock and a few of them will not forgive and forget. This is attested to by the comments that some of the older generation will make until they leave this world and the people who became the embroiled in politics. Whichever committee is voted in will always face criticism. Knowing all this, appreciating the implications underneath the surface, we, the younger generation must try to move things forward. We are not perfect; but we must now play our part in this drama and begin to influence the mood and atmoshpere of our mosques. If we likened the story of our mosques to a play, then until recently we have been locked in a serious drama and, at times, tragedy, and now we have to move this play along to a feeling of joy, to the restoration of friendships, to the resolution of conflicts, to the clarification of mistaken identities or misunderstanings, from a tragedy to a romance, jumping from one genre to another. May Allah give us the success, wisdom, respect, ability and courage to tackle the problems we face and to continue the mission our fathers began and belp them to realise the Prophet’s saying: “Whoever builds a mosque in this world, Allah will build him/her a house in Paradise.

Assalamualaikum, I sincerely hope now that Aylesbury masjid move on now as the last couple of months have been a tense and nervous time for many in the community with accusations being made at so and so and tempers reaching boiling point. I really belive deep down that the older generation of the mosque are good people but they just have these backyard beliefs that don’t co exist with the teachings of our beloved prophet sallalahoalaihwasalam. We need to start doing more things for the young muslims of the community rather than getting imams from Pakistan that cannot speak english and cannot communicate with the younger generation. Islam is for everybody and not just for people from Pakistan as this is what it feels like sometimes in the masjid. I pray to allah with the new committee the masjid moves forward and not backwards as there were many great people who gave alot of their time and efforts to build and run the masjid who are sadly no longer with us.

Bismillah -ar- Rahman – ar Raheem. All praise to Allah, and peace and blessing on the slave and final meesanger of Allah, Muhammed, peace be upon him.

Assalam-u-aluikum. Very intersted/sad to hear all about the politics and infighting that goes on in this masjid. Some people have said that the masji is more akin to a Pakistan old mans social club. Suban Allah !!! The masjid forfils is basic duty of holding the prayers but that is it. Why do you think that the Muslim youth are so misguided and are far from the deen? I will tell you why ; a brother i know has, marsha’Allah read the quran several times, but is completly ignorant of his religion- i asked him if he knew what surah Fatiha meant and he didnt have a clue. This is why the people have gone astray. There are people who are in the mosque comittee who do not even pray- according to many scholars they are outside of the fold of Islam (and Allah know best) yet they are the ones who are running the mosque.Tell me, what does the mosque offer non pakistani people?? Suban ‘Allah, once a policeman (non muslim) came into the masjid to talk about “the community”. He sat very patiently listening to the Imam give his talk…..in Urdu !!! Imagine if the Imam had talked in english- he could have learnt something about Islam and told other people.How inviting is the Majid for new muslims or people wanting to learn about Islam. They cannot even agree the 1st day of Ramdan.

Unless things have changed recently, why do we have no Arabic classes, lessons in Fiqh, discussions on the many problems withing the aqeeda of many of the people in the masjid.

May Allah guide us to Seerat al mustakeem, and forgive me if i had said anything wrong.

according to many scholars they are outside of the fold of Islam (and Allah know best) yet they are the ones who are running the mosqueThat is, according to a tiny minority of scholars. Ibn Hanbal held this opinion, while later Hanbalis (such as Ibn al-Jawzi) rejected it, and the other three madhahib also reject it.

Of course, latter-day selective Hanbalis advance this position as if it were truth and rubbish the majority position, sometimes in quite insolent terms.

Bismillah ar Rahman ar Raheem. In response to brother Yusef Smith, many scholars are of this opinion because of the following hadiths/ surats :

Between a slave and disbelief and shirk is abdanoning the prayer (muslim no 081)

The covenant between us and them is the prayer and however abandonded it had disbelieved (at tirmithi no 2621, an nasa’i no 464 and ahmad 5 :346 and 355)

But if they repent and perform the prayer and pay zakah, then leave their way free ( at tawbah 9;5)

But if they repent , offer prayers perfectly and give zakat they are your brethren in religion (at tawbah 9:11

There are diffences of opinions (and like i said Allah knows best), but to abandon the prayer is at the very least a MAJOR sin, and people who do not pray should certainly not have any control over the running of any masjid.

I think that over the last two or three elections not much work has been done at the mosque. At least no recognisable acheivment has been made in respect of increasing the capacity of the mosque. Running what has already been built for us by our elders is not much of a task in itself! We need to move one step forward! That is to ahcieve something in the long term! Forming a coalition committee by ignoring the majority of the community is not an ahcievement in itself! Unfortunately, in some cases the situation is that a brother will supported and nominated for a position in the executive committee not for what he is and believes or he can do for the mosque but simply on the condition that he agrees to fulfill the expectations of those who nominate him! We have seen this happen in reality just now! i think that this is not in the best interest of the mosque!

I read with great interest the comments from various brothers about Aylesbury Mosque.

I am in agreement with one of the comments that we need to do more for the younger generation but what about doing more for us sisters?….Has any of the so called members on the committee for the mosque given this any thought?? I for one and i know many sisters in Aylesbury will agree with me that there is hardly anything going on at Aylesbury Mosque for us sister and instead we are having to travel out of town to attend talks etc. Other towns (e.g. luton) hold talks at their mosque every few weeks, i don’t see why we can’t do that in Aylesbury?

I have been reading these comments and to be honest, am ashamed of some brothers. The mosque is a place of worship that should not be divided by a persons status/race etc. The mosque should be in the hands of people who want to help in the name of allah, not just because one feels they have more authority over people. It has been said ‘Who ever builds a Mosque, Allah swt will have a house for them in heaven, Subhanallah’, so what happens to the people who fight in the house of Allah?!, because thats happened in the Aylesbury mosque. I have seen the way it is dividing us young youths & its not looking good!

I heard that the Aylesbury Mosque were celebrating Jashn-e-Milad-Un-Nabi yesterday (25/03/2007), so went along to see how it was. I can tell you that if felt so good to see the togetherness of everyone. The naats/talks etc were amazing. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I really recommend these talks to take place more frequently, in English would be a bonus.